


Drifting Roads

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Series: Off Label [8]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, But also, Communication, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, FUCKING FINALLY, Hurt/Comfort, I'm so proud, M/M, Self-Harm, Sorry Not Sorry, Suicidal Thoughts, also the author is unnaturally fond of symbolism, and how much it's basically a fuck-or-die scenario, i also totally forgot when in canon everybody actually finds out grey wardens have to die, look! everybody uses their words!, oh and i have personal opinions about the dark ritual, so ooops, which may have influenced this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 21:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10557894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: Alistair gets a tour of Howe's dungeon, strikes a bargain with Anora, and manages to actually talk to Zevran about their relationship. In between wanting to kill himself.Takes place a week after "Shadows." And if you haven't read that one, this one will make absolutely no sense.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frankenmouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankenmouse/gifts).



> So the dark ritual was always going to show up in this series, but it wasn't going to show up quite like this. And then someone *cough*Frankenmouse*cough* asked how Alistair would react to seeing Howe's dungeon.
> 
> Honestly? It hadn't even crossed my mind, but this story (which was supposed to be kinda fluffy, actually) took a hard left turn at that point. This is nothing like my original plan, but I think it's a whole lot better. Though of course it's now been long enough that no one remembers what the hell is going on with these two...

When Zevran sees what secrets hide on the lowest floor of Rendon Howe's manor, his first thought is how to keep Alistair from seeing any of it, and the fact that Alistair has likely never seen a real torturer's workroom has little to do with it. If it was simply a matter of protecting an innocent from seeing the horrors people inflict on each other, it wouldn't twist his stomach into knots. What makes him want to hit something is knowing what Alistair will see when he looks at these broken bodies, what flawed parallels he'll draw.

It's impossible, but Zevran tries to think of some plan that will keep Alistair away from the results of Howe's games. Hidden in the shadows between two torches, he counts guards and times their rounds to find the gaps in between. He could lay a trap here, ambush a guard there, take those three down with a single grenade...

And still it wouldn't be enough. There are scores of guards down here, and his most potent weapons are also his least subtle. The first time he sets a room on fire, the noise will bring everyone in earshot, including Mahariel, with Alistair and Sten right behind her. At this point, Zevran's only hope is to control how much Alistair sees, rather than save him from seeing it at all, and so he plans accordingly.

Perhaps if Howe had been a little less thorough in exploring every possible depravity, those plans might even have worked.

###

Alistair knows his eyes are too wide, his face too pale, but since Mahariel looks much the same, at least no one will question him. Even Sten looks ill underneath his habitual disapproving frown, and Zevran's face is completely blank, every emotion locked away. Only his eyes hint at anything, the way he glances at Alistair whenever he thinks no one is watching.

Every one of those glances feels like a blow, dragging up memories of Zevran on his hands and knees, bleeding under Alistair's hands. Not even a week later, and he can still feel the heat of burned skin under his fingers, still hear muffled screaming as he breaks open cuts to bleed again.

His stomach rebels, and he turns away, getting his helmet off only just in time, letting it hit the floor with a clang he barely notices. Hands braced on his knees, he vomits in harsh, gagging heaves until the only thing left to come up is pure acid. He's shaking now, covered in cold sweat beneath his armor, and still his stomach tries to turn itself inside out. The burn in his throat makes him cough, which only makes the burn worse, which only makes him cough more-

"Here," Zevran says quietly at his elbow. "Drink."

Alistair tilts his head enough to see what Zevran's holding, and he's a little surprised to find a cup rather than a healing potion. "Where-" he begins, and his voice is so rough he grimaces. "Where did you find that?"

"Drink," Zevran says again, pushing the cup at him. "It's only water. Clean water, or so says Mahariel."

Which doesn't answer the question of where it came from, but Alistair decides that if Zevran is deliberately avoiding the answer, it's something Alistair doesn't want to know.

He takes the cup, hating the way his hand shakes, and straightens enough to sip carefully. The water is cold, almost painfully so, and it eases the tightness in his throat even as it does absolutely nothing for the sick feeling in his guts. He makes the mistake of looking back at the room--empty now, except for the bodies--and his stomach tries to return the water.

Zevran steps in front of him, blocking most of his view, and Alistair looks away, back toward the wall. This particular stretch is free of chains, and mostly free of blood, and right now, it's the only thing he can stand to see. He would sooner look at Howe's work than meet Zevran's eyes.

A cool hand reaches under his gorget to touch the back of his neck, and he flinches. "I'm fine," he says, aware that his voice betrays him. "I'm fine, go join the others, I'll just be a moment."

"No," Zevran says.

Surprised, Alistair almost looks at him but catches himself in time. If he has to see Zevran's face right now, he doesn't know what he might do. "I'm fine," he says, as firmly as he can.

"Then it will only be a moment longer, and we can all four be joyfully reunited." The light, teasing tone falls a little flat to Alistair's ears, but it's not as if he was in a laughing mood anyway.

###

Zevran can't remember the last time he enjoyed killing someone as much as he enjoys killing Rendon Howe. Even the nobleman he killed a few days ago was more about practicality than pleasure; for that death, he felt little more than satisfaction at a job well done. That was a loose end to be snipped before it turned into a noose to choke Alistair later, and Zevran has barely thought of it since then.

But Howe's? That's a death he revels in, enjoying the twist of the knife as skin and muscle give way, smiling at the blood welling up and the wet gasping of Howe's final breaths. If Zevran thought Mahariel would let him get away with it, he would force elfroot down Howe's throat just for the pleasure of killing him again. There's a certain appeal in strapping him onto his own rack to watch him die by inches, denied that final peace as many times as it takes to satisfy the rage gnawing at the inside of Zevran's ribs.

Since that isn't an option, Zevran takes out his anger on the soldiers Loghain sent for them. There are plenty of those--a rather flattering number, in fact--and he cuts through them like a reaver, spurred on by pain rather than slowed by it. Let the others choke on the smell of burning flesh and wince at the screams of those unfortunates scorched by acid. For Zevran, it's not enough.

It still isn't enough when the last of the soldiers fall, but at least the edge of his rage is blunted. He can take hold of it and hide it behind a smile and a jest, cleaning his knives as if he doesn't want to hunt down and kill every single person in this keep, guard or servant or guest. He can't, though: Mahariel wouldn't allow it, and he isn't sure it would help anyway. The person he wants to hurt is beyond such things, now.

###

There isn't even a moment to breathe when they reach Eamon's estate, and Alistair finds he's glad of it. If he's arguing with Eamon and Mahariel, then he isn't thinking about Howe, or remembering Zevran's blood on his hands. Far better to plan for the Landsmeet than think about how they would all treat him if he told them what kind of person he really is.

He does manage to sidestep the question of marriage, his horror at the idea a little more obvious than is strictly polite. Since Anora looks just as horrified, Alistair can only hope the whole plan will die a quiet death.

The look Mahariel and Eamon exchange isn't promising, but Alistair ignores it. He's reached his limit on things he can worry about today.

As soon as they're done, Alistair retreats to his room, declining Eamon's and Mahariel's separate invitations to dine with them. The thought of food is nauseating, his stomach threatening rebellion at the mere suggestion, and a night by himself in the quiet of his room sounds like the Maker's paradise right now.

A paradise that, like the Maker Himself, is currently outside Alistair's reach: he opens the door to his room to find Zevran standing by the window, arms crossed tightly over his chest as he stares out into the courtyard. His face is fixed in that tiny smile he always seems to wear, but there's a tension in him that Alistair's seen too often in the week since Taliesin's death.

"You've made your escape, then?" Zevran asks, light and teasing.

There's nothing amiss in his face or his voice, and Alistair scoffs at himself for imagining that he would know if Zevran was upset. It's the worst part of being around him, knowing how easily he lies, that everything Alistair sees is only and always what Zevran wants him to see.

A small part of Alistair wants to pass off all responsibility, to pretend that Zevran manipulated him into what happened last week. He has no reason to think otherwise, after all, and he doesn't doubt Zevran is capable of it. Perhaps none of his decisions that night were really his, and his sense of control nothing but an illusion.

Is it worse to believe that Zevran twisted his desire to help into something so perverse, or to know himself for a man no better than Rendon Howe?

That question isn't making Alistair feel any better, and Zevran's presence isn't helping. "I'm going to bed," Alistair says in his most quelling tone.

Zevran smirks, and Alistair tells himself it's only wishful thinking that makes him see strain at the corners of Zevran's eyes.

"To sleep," Alistair adds.

"We could do that, as well," Zevran says. His expression flickers, the smirk gone and then back like a candle caught by a draft.

Alistair's stomach rolls. He wants to crawl into bed and wrap the blankets around both of them and stay there, skin to skin, for at least the next week.

But more than that, he wants to know that it really is what _he_ wants, as opposed to what Zevran wants him to want, and since there's no way to know that for sure, he'd rather be by himself than constantly reminded that he's either a torturer or a naïve fool.

So he looks at Zevran without smiling and adds firmly, "Alone."

###

That word in that tone is more a knife in the gut than Taliesin's appearance, but the pain actually makes it easier to keep his smile in place. "As you wish," Zevran says with a bow, sweeping his arms wide.

He hesitates a moment, waiting for any sign that Alistair wants to be talked out of his decision, but all he receives is tight-lipped silence. "As you wish," he says again, softer.

It isn't what he wants to say. He wants to rage against whatever ridiculous likeness Alistair sees between himself and Howe, or cajole Alistair into bed so they can both forget what they've seen, or beg to be allowed to stay, to just sleep with Alistair's weight heavy against his back.

Brasca. He wants to beg. _Beg._ He never begs for anything, not truly, not outside the confines of a job or a game, and he will not beg some Fereldan puppy for whatever scraps of affection he deigns to give out.

Without losing his smile, he saunters from the room, a casual pace that shouts how little he cares, and he closes the door without slamming it. His own room is only a few steps to the right, but he turns left instead, needing the release that only comes with movement. Everyone else is either eating supper or serving it, leaving the halls blessedly empty. Out of habit, Zevran walks softly, so that not even his footsteps disturb the quiet.

A quiet that gives him too much time to think, and his thoughts insist on returning to Alistair. Alistair, and this whatever it is between them that's lasted months longer than Zevran ever expected. He would have given good odds, that first afternoon, that there would never be a second time, much less a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, until he has to work to remember what it was like before, when their shared tent was shared in name only. There was Alistair's space, and there was Zevran's space, and the line between was clear without a word ever being said.

Until that line blurred, and then broke, and then vanished completely, and now Zevran aches with the lack of something he never wanted to have in the first place. Something he never should have expected that he would be allowed to keep.

The sound of footsteps jolts him out of his thoughts, and he looks around for somewhere to hide. Part of it is just another habit the Crows drilled into him, but part of it is also a deep desire to avoid everyone. He's in no mood to make clever conversation and pretend everything is fine.

With another jolt, he realizes where his feet have carried him as he walked blindly: all the way to the private chapel where Alistair prayed last week. There are few places he wants to avoid more, but since one of those places is standing frozen in the hallway, he ducks inside and pulls the door closed, shutting out all but a thin sliver of light from the hallway. As he pauses to let his eyes adjust, the smells of beeswax and dusty stone overwhelm him in the darkness, reminder of the last time he was here.

He should leave the moment those booted feet pass by, get away from the memories of the second worst night of his life. Instead, he approaches the altar as silently as he did the last time, as if any noise might give him away to the memory of Alistair praying in the darkness.

 _"I am not alone,"_ that memory whispers. Begs.

Zevran stands where Alistair knelt, lets his fingers skim over the altar, and finally faces head-on what he's been ignoring for weeks: when the time comes to confront the archdemon, Alistair will likely die. Whether he wants to die is irrelevant. He'll go willingly anyway and pay the price for being who he is. That he didn't know the price when he became a Grey Warden doesn't matter to him: he'll go where he's needed, do what needs to be done to save everyone else, never mind the personal cost.

An unfortunate habit of his, Zevran is coming to realize.

And even if he doesn't die, it's clear now that Eamon will place him on Fereldan's throne and find a suitable woman to be his wife, someone with political connections and the training to compensate for Alistair's weaknesses. For all his push to see Alistair crowned, Eamon is no fool, nor is he so cruel as to push Alistair forward and then leave him to drown. There will be a wife, and a good one; Eamon almost certainly has a list ready, for when Alistair is willing to look at it.

In Orlais or Antiva, Alistair's wedding wouldn't necessarily mean anything for Zevran, but Fereldans are all so terribly provincial. Even in the current circumstances, it makes Zevran smile to imagine Alistair's face if anyone were to suggest he keep a lover after his wedding. If he can somehow be convinced, his wife will be just as Fereldan, just as provincial, and Alistair would never keep a lover secret from her.

Another memory of Alistair whispers from the shadows: _"If it's what you need, I can do it."_ He kept that promise, no matter what it cost him, the same way he'll keep any promise he makes.

Maybe their time together has lasted longer than Zevran expected, but even without Howe, it was never something that would outlive the archdemon. That he allowed himself to pretend it could is his own fault. He should know better than to be so willfully blind, but then, he knew better with Taliesin and Rinna, too.


	2. Chapter 2

Breakfast the next morning is painful.

Alistair keeps his eyes on his plate, because there's almost no one at the table he wants to look at. Mahariel and Eamon are still set on marrying him to Anora, Anora is still in complete agreement with him on the absurdity of the entire idea, and most of their companions have either sided with Mahariel or are staying out of it with such studied care that they might as well just tell him he's being childish. The only exception is Zevran, who jokes and laughs and flirts as if nothing's wrong, as if this is just another morning around the campfire.

And even Zevran isn't acting quite like himself, though Alistair can't put his finger down on the difference. His smile is as bright as ever, his jokes still walk the line between amusing and obscene, and he eats with the kind of enthusiasm that would warm the heart of any cook. Mahariel certainly acts as if there's nothing wrong with him, and Alistair spends the meal swinging between anger at Mahariel for not seeing that Zevran is upset, and anger at himself for thinking he would have any idea what Zevran is feeling.

He tries to eat, but every bite sticks in his throat, choking him until he washes it down with water. After a while, he just pushes the food around on his plate, the little he managed to eat sitting uncomfortably in his stomach. As soon as the others appear to be finishing up, he mumbles an excuse in the general direction of the table and retreats.

Eamon has a long list of tasks for him, but instead of doing any of them, Alistair hides. There's really no other word for it, but the voice in his head chanting "coward, coward, coward" isn't enough to drown out the one chanting, "monster, monster, monster." Just the thought of being around other people makes him ill, imagining the poison inside him creeping out to contaminate them.

So he hides. Not in his room--too easy for anyone to find him--but in the small chapel he remembers from his childhood. No one uses it much, and the servants clean it only enough to keep the dust from accumulating. With everything else going on, there's a reasonable chance he could hide in here for days.

His hands are shaking as he lights a candle at one of the torches in the hallway, and he wastes an inch or two of beeswax in his haste. As he carries the candle into the chapel, the wax burns his fingers, a deep ache that warns of blisters later, and that seems somehow right. A punishment he's more than earned, even if no one else sees it.

About to set the candle down on the altar, he hesitates, staring at the wax cooling on his skin. If the pain is that intense on his hands, scarred and weathered from years of fighting, then how much would it hurt on more sensitive skin? He dreads the thought of the pain, but if no one else will see the monster inside him, if they won't do anything about it, then maybe he can-

"Ah, there you are," a crisp female voice says from behind him, and he jerks, spilling more wax in the process, though this time it lands on the floor rather than his skin.

He turns, the candle clutched in his hand, to find Anora regarding him with the same look she always gives him, the one that makes him want to apologize without knowing what he's apologizing for.

 Only after the silence has grown awkward does Alistair realize she's expecting him to say something. His mind is blank, too much of his attention on Howe and Zevran, and all he can manage is, "Yes?"

She takes that as an invitation to sweep into the chapel, every bit the queen. The ruler Alistair will never be, whatever Eamon thinks.

"We should talk," she says.

That's terrifying enough to pull Alistair's attention firmly into the present. "About what?"

She doesn't answer immediately, settling onto the bench closest to the altar while she studies him. Her expression is studiously blank when she finally says, "I would make a better queen than you would a king."

On top of everything else, it's too much, and Alistair slams the fist holding the candle down onto the altar. The flame flickers wildly, almost plunging them into darkness. "You think I don't know that?" he demands.

Her eyebrows lift briefly. "Then why don't you tell Eamon no? He can't force you to stand before the Landsmeet."

Alistair turns away, fitting the candle into a holder with more care than necessary. "You know why," he says at last.

"Do I?" she asks, challenging now.

If she can be blunt, then so can he. "The arls want Marric's son more than they want Loghain's daughter," he says, turning back to face her.

The corner of her mouth turns up in an unamused smile. "So the matter rests on our fathers, rather than on our own merits?" She snorts softly, derisively. "Or lack thereof."

She probably expects him to flinch at that, but he only nods. It's the truth, after all: he is far less suited to ruling than she is.

"I have run this kingdom for five years," she says. A little of her anger is slipping out, heat he's never seen from her. "I didn't need Cailan's help, and I certainly don't need yours."

"I don't _want_ to be king," he says, matching her heat with his own.

"Then what _do_ you want?" she demands.

"I want to deal with the Blight, and see the archdemon dead," he says angrily. "And after, I want Ferelden at peace with itself. I want Lothering rebuilt, not left a Blighted wasteland because the arls are too busy fighting each other over who gets to wear a fucking hat and sit on an ugly fucking chair!"

He's almost shouting by the end, his hands curled tightly into fists, every breath harsh. For her part, Anora is giving him a considering look, almost thoughtful. There's no sign of the anger that edged her words earlier.

"They can't make you a figurehead for a civil war if you don't agree," she says, watching him closely.

"They don't need to," he says, unable to match her calm. "They can put themselves forward and say they have a better claim than Cailan's widow."

"And once someone does it, others will follow." She runs a hand over her knee, smoothing out her dress, the first sign of nerves he's ever seen from her. "I know."

"I don't want to be king," he says again, quieter. "But I don't want Ferelden torn apart, either."

She's looking at him now with something that might be surprise, or might be approval. "Will you let me rule, or will you meddle?"

If she's trying to needle him, she'll need a different needle, because the only thing he feels at those words is relief. "I won't meddle," he says. "You know more about ruling than I ever will."

"All right," she says quietly, almost to herself. Her gaze has wandered, and now she's staring over his shoulder, thinking hard.

He waits patiently, unsure what comes next. Are they really talking seriously about marrying?

"It may not matter," he says. She blinks out of whatever reverie she was in, cocking her head at him inquisitively. "The archdemon may kill me."

The archdemon _will_ kill him, unless Mahariel gets in the way. The reminder calms him. He can agree to marry Anora, which will make Eamon happy and spare them endless arguments over the next weeks. And perhaps that betrothal, however short, will give Anora a more secure hold on the throne if any of the arls get ideas.

But either way, his part in it ends with the archdemon.

His heartbeat slows and the pain in his stomach eases. He has a plan now, and that sense of direction settles him.

"And if it doesn't kill you?" Anora asks.

He can't bring himself to tell her the full truth for fear those sharp eyes will see more than he wants them to, so he just says, "If I survive, my answers are the same."

At her nod, he gathers breath to wish her farewell, only to have her speak first. "There is one more thing." Her lips are pressed tightly together, and she's once again staring at the darkness to his right.

Which doesn't bode well. "One more thing?"

"Your Antivan," she says.

The anguish and guilt slam back into Alistair, his pulse once again thudding, his breath coming fast. In his confusion, the only thing he can think to say is, "He's not mine."

Anora waves this away with a flick of her wrist. "You know who I mean."

She pauses, clearly waiting for an answer, so Alistair nods once, shortly. "I do." He also knows where this conversation is going, and he's desperate to cut it off. "He'll be gone when the archdemon is dead."

Her eyebrow lifts again. "Why do you say that?"

"Because Mahariel will release him once that's finished, and he'll have no reason to stay." This was always a temporary arrangement. Alistair knew it from the start, and the reminder isn't a bad thing: his death will solve so many problems, and he himself would be an anchor weighing others down were he to live. The archdemon will be dead, Zevran will be on his way elsewhere, and Ferelden will have a good ruler in Anora. And Mahariel will be able to restore Fereldan's Grey Wardens.

Alistair takes a deep breath as quietly as possible, letting the air fill his lungs and push out all the emotions roiling in his gut. It doesn't matter if Zevran has lied to him about everything that's happened between them. It doesn't matter if he himself is as much a monster as Howe. None of it will matter in a few more weeks, and the realization is freeing. He can redeem himself and the archdemon at the same time.

Anora's eyebrows are still up, almost at her hairline. "Your Antivan doesn't seem in any hurry to leave."

"He's a Crow," Alistair says, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. "He could be plotting both our deaths, and we'd never know."

"Hmm." She smooths out her dress again, fingers brushing over the nap of the velvet. "In any case, whether he stays or you take another lover, I ask for discretion."

"You...what?" It's not what he expected, and it leaves him blinking and off balance.

She gives a long-suffering sigh. "Discretion. Keeping it secret would be impossible, but I ask that you keep your lovers as private as possible." Her fingers tense on her knee. "You may take whoever you like to your bed. It doesn't matter to me so long as they don't shout it from the rooftops."

Caught off-guard or not, Alistair doesn't miss the tension in her shoulders. "It does matter to you."

"No," she snaps. "It doesn't. What matters to me is that you not shame me before all of Thedas. Keep your lovers discreet, and I will do you the same courtesy."

It takes him a moment to unravel that, and while he's working on it, she adds, "I can assure you that none of them will get a child on me."

"That...wasn't the first thing I thought of," Alistair admits.

Her eyes are sharp again, like she wants to cut him apart to see what he's made of. "And you?" she asks.

"And me what?" This conversation has changed directions so many times, Alistair's no longer sure which way is up.

"I have known other men who preferred men," she says, picking her words with care. "Some of them could enjoy the company of women, and some could not. If you don't wish Ferelden to be torn apart after your death, you will need an heir."

It dawns on him what she's hinting at, and despite everything, his face flushes red. "There are...ummm...other ways to find an heir," he says, almost stuttering. "I could name someone."

She inclines her head. "You could, but such an heir would face the same problems I would."

"The Landsmeet will have final say," he says desperately.

"And the Landsmeet usually appoints the previous king's son," she says. Those sharp eyes soften a little. "If it's the only choice, so be it, but the succession will be more stable with an heir of your blood. An heir of Marric's blood."

"I...ummm..." He doesn't know what to say, so he tries to go on the offensive instead. "You say you don't care if I take other lovers, but you look like you do."

"What I care about is parity," she says crisply, "rather than some backwards notion of fidelity. If you can fuck other people, then so can I."

Alistair twitches at the word "fuck." It sounds obscene coming from Anora, who's always been so regal and controlled. A queen down to her bones.

"Will that be a problem?" she asks, so sweetly Alistair knows it's a trap.

Trap or not, his answer is the same. "No," he says. "You just surprised me."

His answer seems to surprise her in turn, her fingers stilling on her knee. "There will be no problems with the succession," she says. "Any child I bear will be yours."

"All right," he says. He believes her, but the whole conversation is absurd. He'll be dead before they're married, much less before it will matter whose child she does or doesn't bear.

Why did he not realize it sooner, how little any of this matters when his death is so close? All the weight is lifted from him, all the guilt and self-hatred no longer important. He feels light, lighter than he has since before Ostagar.

When he comes back to the present, Anora is watching him as if she doesn't trust his response.

It takes him a moment to find his place in the conversation, and then he says, "It's only fair."

She nods slowly, her gaze fixed on his face. "I'm glad we understand each other," she says at last, rising from her seat. "Eamon left a while ago to meet with one of the other arls, but we should tell him that we're in agreement. When he returns, shall I send someone for you so the three of us might discuss this together?"

It's not actually a question, but Alistair says, "All right," like it is.

"Good," she says, crossing back to the door with the same regal glide as when she entered. "Until later, then."

After she's gone, Alistair stands and stares at the altar for a while, but the peace he'd hoped to find in prayer has come to him a different way. Exhaustion drags him down all of a sudden, and he thinks he might actually be able to sleep well for the first time all week.

###

The next week is dream-like, that strange combination of the mundane and the bizarre that Alistair has come to associate with the Fade. He practices with Sten in the mornings and feels almost like they're back on the road, then he trails after Eamon and Anora in the afternoons and tries to act like he knows anything about the world in which they move so effortlessly. The whole thing makes him feel like a rope jerked back and forth between two puppies, and it leaves him dizzy.

It helps, though, that all he wants is to strengthen Anora's position. He doesn't have to care what the banns and arls think of him, so long as they support Anora's claim once he's dead. All he has to do during those afternoon visits is follow Anora's lead: smile or frown or look thoughtful whenever she does. It's surprisingly effective and entertaining in its own way, learning to read the cues in her face and body that tell him what she'll do next.

By the time the Landsmeet convenes, he's practiced enough that he's not even half a beat behind her, and while they never discuss it, he begins to suspect that the game amuses her as well. She smiles at him occasionally, and he's surprised to discover that her approval means something to him, even now when he's merely counting the days until the end. Her smiles are rare things, and it pleases him when he can draw one from her.

The Landsmeet itself is exhausting, and just seeing Loghain's face is almost enough to destroy the wall he's built between himself and the rest of the world. Rage chokes him, and it's all he can do not to cheer when Mahariel delivers the death blow. He can't hide his triumph, the way something in him exults at the justice of it. Loghain's death is a poor trade for Duncan's and Cailan's, but at least it's something.

Anora doesn't smile at him again. He tries to remind himself that it doesn't matter.

###

On the long trip back to Redcliffe, Alistair learns that the longer the wall is there, the easier it is to maintain, a muscle that grows stronger with training. Like a mage's barrier, it keeps everything out while letting him see, and he doesn't understand why he never found this quiet place before. With Loghain dead and the Landsmeet behind them, there's nothing to shake the calm apart. All he needs to do is wait.

Calm or no, he finds himself watching Zevran more often than not. He feels nothing, and yet, he catalogues each smile that curves Zevran's mouth, each quirk of an eyebrow and tilt of his head. A part of Alistair's mind can't stop picking away at it, weighing each expression, trying to decide which are real and which are fake. It holds his attention without rousing any emotion, and he gives up trying to force his attention elsewhere after the first few days. It may be a pointless game--he has no way of knowing when he's right--but it passes the time, even if the only conclusion he reaches is that Zevran smiles almost constantly.

He has a tent to himself now, three times larger than the one he shared with Zevran for so many months. The bed is as comfortable as a camp bed can be, and there are rugs to keep the chill of the ground from his bare feet. Not that his feet are bare all that often: his armor feels more comfortable than anything, the solid weight of it reassuring. The bed may be comfortable, but sleep eludes him so often, and he spends at least half his nights sitting awake pouring over maps and possible strategies. He's seeking his own death, not everyone else's, and there are a dozen possible courses the darkspawn could be taking across Ferelden.

He sleeps no better once they reach Redcliffe. The calm that buffers him during the day somehow also keeps him awake at night, as if this is the only state his mind knows. It's vaguely annoying, if only because it leaves him endless hours with nothing to do but wander aimlessly around the keep.

On the third night, he finds a quiet corner with a bench, and a window that overlooks one of the keep's smaller gardens. It's barren this late in the year, a few leaves still clinging to branches that are nothing but dark slashes in the moonlight. The wind catches leaves and branches both, casting patterns that change between each blink. By the slightly overgrown state of the bushes, Alistair assumes this particular garden has been neglected in the press of the Blight, which means he can sit and stare as long as he wants without disturbing anyone.

The shadows shifting in the moonlight are soothing enough that he dozes a while, head resting on the wall by the window, and when he wakes, it's nearly dawn. The comforting darkness of the night has been replaced by a pale, shadowless light that reminds him strongly of the Fade.

One of the shadows moves, and Alistair glances over to see Zevran, barefoot and naked from the waist up, with a knife at each hip. In the grey dawn, he looks more like a dream than a living, breathing person. Something created by the Fade to play on all Alistair's hopes and fears.

He has neither hopes nor fears now, and so he simply watches as Zevran begins to practice. Slow, careful movements at first, warm-ups that are the same no matter what the discipline, changing gradually to stretches that look easy when Zevran does them but that Alistair knows he could never match. Over time, Zevran transitions from warm-ups to kicks and slashes, the sorts of movements any beginner might learn, and then to jumps and higher kicks, spinning and twisting his way into ever more complicated movements, until he's doing backflips across the courtyard and leaping higher than Alistair's head, all without once losing track of his knives.

After months on the road together, Alistair has seen this a thousand times. He watched at first with hate and fear, later with admiration, and later yet with desire and occasional amusement at the way Zevran shows off as soon as he knows he has an audience. For all that, Alistair has never once just watched. He's never noticed how Zevran never trips, never cuts himself with his knives, and rarely even puts a foot out of place. His control is as close to flawless as anything Alistair has ever seen, likely will ever see.

It's impossible to look away, even as the sun begins to burn off the dreamlike quality of the scene.

Just as there was no flashy beginning, there's no dramatic finish. The more complex moves drop away one by one, and the ones that remain are slower each time, until at last Zevran comes to a complete stop in the garden's center, hands at his sides and knives flipped up so the blades lie along his arms. Sweat is pouring down his chest, which rises and falls with each steady breath, and his face is perfectly calm.

Happy.

As soon as he's thought the word, Alistair frowns. It makes no sense, not when this is one of the few times lately that he's seen Zevran without even the trace of a smile.

Down in the courtyard, Zevran inspects his knives as if he's just finished a real fight, then sheathes each one carefully. There's still no sign of a smile, and yet, Alistair's mind keeps insisting that Zevran is happy without producing any real reason for that conclusion.

A door opens across the garden, and a young servant slips through, jumping a little when she sees Zevran. She looks startled, but hers isn't the expression that grabs Alistair's attention.

The look of peace on Zevran's face vanished before the door was even fully open, replaced with that faint smile Alistair knows too well. Now the smile widens into something that's exactly right for a near stranger. It makes Alistair think of a blacksmith selecting a hammer from a wall of them, picking the one that's best suited to the task at hand.

It all happens in the time it takes Zevran to turn and face the servant, a change so quick and so complete Alistair would never have seen it if it weren't for his current vantage point. Even Zevran's posture has changed, from poised and alert to a lazy almost-slouch.

"Good morning," Zevran says. There's the amused lilt that goes with the smile, as if he knows a joke and might be persuaded to share.

The servant stares at him without answering, clearly taken aback by the unexpected appearance of a half-dressed elven assassin in this out-of-the-way corner of the keep.

Apparently unconcerned, Zevran waves one hand at the door the servant entered through. "This way to the kitchens, yes?"

"Ah...yes!" She shakes herself and gives a belated bow. "Yes, my lord, the kitchens are just through there. But if you need something, I'd be happy to get it for you."

He gives her a brilliant smile and saunters toward the door. "But it's ever so much more fun to find what I need myself." Only Zevran could make that sound lewd, and even in his current state, Alistair almost smiles.

That smile fades as he looks over at the servant, who's staring wide-eyed after Zevran. Her gaze drifts downward, presumably caught by the tattoos and the way they turn Zevran's body into a work of art.

Those aren't words Alistair usually applies to Zevran, but they resonate now. A work of art. Yes. Something designed to elicit a specific response in others, then executed with the same care as went into its design. A master artist's sculpture, carved and polished and painted to exacting specifications and never allowed to be anything less than perfect.

That realization tries to become something more, crystallizing around the memory of Zevran's peaceful expression, but Alistair breaks it hurriedly apart. He doesn't need to look at it directly to know it threatens his own peace, and the quiet place he's found is the only thing allowing him to move forward.

He waits until Zevran is gone, then slips away himself. Eamon or Mahariel will surely be looking for him. Planning for the march on Denerim will save him from thinking about anything else.

###

Mahariel brings him Morrigan's plan that evening, directly after dinner. He's stunned, too stunned to think or argue effectively, and Mahariel can out-think him even on his best days. It's easier to follow along, to let her persuade him that this is the best choice for all of them, even as the calm inside him begins to crack.

Morrigan herself is surprisingly pleasant, in a distant and slightly uncomfortable sort of way. She makes no jokes at his expense, and when his body refuses to cooperate despite his best efforts, she provides magical assistance without comment. Her grip on his cock is firm, business-like, more like a handshake than anything sexual, and when she's finally sitting astride him, she rides him with a grim determination that does nothing to inspire lust.

His release is hardly more than a twisting in his gut, satisfying only because it means they're finished. As soon as she climbs off him, he rolls away and off the other side of the bed, grabbing for his clothes before he's even upright. He pulls them on quickly without looking at Morrigan, and he's still tightening his belt as he heads for the door.

He could return to his room, but Mahariel has proved he's not safe from visitors. What he needs is someplace quiet where he can pull that silence and calm into himself and shore up the peace that's carried him through the last weeks. It only needs to last a little while longer, just until they've reached Denerim. It isn't too late, after all. Whatever he and Morrigan did, he can still make the right choice when he stands before the archdemon.

Except he isn't sure he has the strength. It's the right choice, as right as Zevran killing that unnamed wolf, but now that death isn't a foregone conclusion, he doesn't know if he can choose it. He needs quiet, a place where he can sit to gather his resolve and remind himself of the honorable choice. The only real choice, if he doesn't want to become a man like Howe.

Finding someplace quiet proves to be a problem, however. Every time he thinks he's found one, it's invaded almost immediately by someone else. Even the chapel isn't empty: a few soldiers sit somber vigil, unable to sleep before tomorrow's march.

It takes him a while to think of it, but the small garden where Zevran practiced is, it turns out, completely empty.

There's a small bench against one wall, the stone cold in the night air. Alistair sits half bent over, hands gripping the edge of the bench until his fingers go numb, trying to draw the cold into himself. He wants to return to this morning when there was no choice, when this was easy because there was no room for cowardice. No one could call it choosing death when the alternative was letting the Blight conquer Ferelden.

"Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide."

The words are out before he even knows he's thought them, a whisper lost in the chill darkness. He closes his eyes and sees Zevran on his knees, burned and bleeding, tears running down his face.

Cold air burns his lungs as he sucks in a deep breath, the prayer nearly involuntary. "I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond," he whispers, "for there is no darkness in the Maker's Light..."

Howe's dungeon was dark. No sign of Light there, just blood and more blood.

"... and nothing He has wrought shall be lost."

Blood on the floor, on the walls, on blades and straps and the cruel barbs of a dozen whips. Blood on his hands, sticky and dark. Hands that are so cold now he can't feel the blood anymore, and he rubs at them absently.

"I am not alone."

Those words have never felt more like a lie. He's alone, and he should be alone, should be dead like Howe, like every other wolf in the world.

His hands don't feel right, and he rubs at them harder, scratching at the backs and palms for a sensation that's at least familiar. The skin begins to burn, and that feels right. Better the pain than the numbness. He deserves the pain, wants it the way he wants to pretend Morrigan never made her offer.

"Even as I stumble on the path with my eyes closed, yet I see the Light is here."

If the Light is here, he can't see it in the darkness. Does he even want that Light shining on him, to have the Maker see everything he is and everything he's done?

"I am not alone," he says again, wanting it to be true and knowing he doesn't deserve anything other than what he has. "I am not alone."

The sound is so quiet he can't even say what it is, but he opens his eyes anyway. Zevran is standing a few feet away, in nearly the same spot where he began this morning's practice, his face hidden in the shadows.

Alistair's hands flex once before he scratches at his palms again, fingernails scraping down to his bare wrists when that isn't enough. He wants to wrap himself around Zevran and he wants to run away, and he can't do either. All he can do is dig his nails deeper into his skin, wanting the pain as if it will help him find the peace that kept him safe this morning.

He's so focused on the pain that he doesn't notice when Zevran comes closer, close enough to lay cool fingers across his to stop the restless scratching. The touch hurts worse than anything Alistair could do to himself, and he jerks back, scratching harder.

"Stop, please," Zevran says, stepping closer to touch Alistair's hand again.

For an answer, Alistair pulls away, dropping his hands between his knees where Zevran can't reach them.

They wrestle briefly, fruitlessly: Alistair can't free himself, but neither can Zevran pull his hands apart. It ends with Zevran so close their knees bump, his rapid breaths ghosting over Alistair's cheek as his fingers dig into Alistair's wrists, pressing against the tendons. Alistair is stronger, but Zevran is strong enough to force his hands open and stop the scratching.

"Please stop," Zevran says again, desperation clear this time. Only, Alistair doesn't want to hear that tone from him, with all the implications it carries.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, though he knows that doesn't make sense.

"Stop, mi co-" Zevran's voice hitches at the same time as Alistair sucks in a pained breath, remembering Zevran calling him _mi corazón_ in a vicious, poisonous voice.

The pause lasts for a single racing heartbeat before Zevran goes on as if it was always what he meant to say, "-cachorro. Please, stop."

His grip on Alistair's wrists hasn't faltered, and he's dragging Alistair's hands slowly farther apart.

"I can't!" The words burst out, too loud. "I can't, I'm sorry, please go away, you need to go _away_!"

Zevran doesn't answer aloud, just shifts his weight to give himself better leverage, so Alistair's hands are now pinned to opposite knees.

Without an outlet, the self-loathing surges up. He can't breathe, and his heart is beating too fast, and his stomach feels like it would empty itself if his throat wasn't closed. Zevran is too close, and the sound of him panting as he struggles is too, too familiar.

The world slips sideways, stars and bare branches and cold stone walls smearing together in a nauseating spiral. Something hard slams into his knees and hands, and he digs in his fingers, trying to hold on against the way everything is spinning. Memory and nightmare and reality twist together, so that he smells the cold dirt of the courtyard and the old blood of Howe's dungeon as Zevran gasps and bleeds and begs him to stop.

He's barely conscious of himself, awareness coming in snatches: his hands tight in his own hair, his skin burning along the deeper scratches, his knees aching from the ground beneath them. Under everything, he can hear Zevran's voice pleading almost inaudibly, "Please stop, mi cachorro, please stop."

Alistair shudders and tries to curl into a ball, hands dragging his head down so his forehead presses hard against his knees.

Zevran's arms wrap tightly around him, one around his back and the other around his head. "Please stop, cachorro." The words are whispered over and over against the back of his neck, in between kisses that feel all the more wrong because of how much he wants them, how much he wants the intimacy of Zevran's skin against his.

An intimacy he doesn't deserve, no matter how much he craves it.

The first sob catches him by surprise, and he can't stop the ones that follow, shaking his body until he would shake apart completely, except for Zevran's arms clutching him and Zevran's voice whispering, "...para, mi cachorro, para por favor, lo siento, _para_...."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand thank you's to yabbasha over on tumblr for Spanish help.
> 
> para: stop  
> lo siento: I'm sorry  
> por favor: please  
> cachorro: puppy :)


	3. Chapter 3

It hurts worse than anything the Crows ever did to him, and for a wild moment, Zevran wonders why he isn't walking away. Does he want this pain, this knife that stabs his gut with every sob that wracks Alistair's body? Only a fool would seek this out rather than run from it.

Which makes him the biggest fool in Thedas, because running is the farthest thing from his mind. Instead, he huddles closer around Alistair, as if it's possible to physically shield him from the pain that turns his sobs into a long, keening moan, a sound that rises and falls with his breathing. Tears burn behind Zevran's eyes, and he can hear his own voice breaking, begging the way he never thought he would. He can swallow all the stupid things he hoped for, that he should never have allowed himself to hope for, but he can't swallow the memory of Alistair scratching himself bloody.

Those bloodied hands are against his cheek now, and Zevran turns to kiss them, tasting blood on his lips. It makes him even sicker, knowing every bit of this is his fault. He should have known it was too much to ask of Alistair, _had_ known it was too much even if he was only accepting what Alistair offered. He should have walked away, found someone else to give him what he needed.

But he didn't walk away then, and now he can't. All he can do is hold Alistair, his muscles burning with the effort, until eventually the keening softens into gasping breaths and the occasional choked sob.

"I'm sorry," Alistair whispers.

Zevran wants to scream, to make him understand all the things that are wrong with that sentence, but a shred of his training holds. "You have nothing to be sorry for, cachorro."

Under his arm, Alistair's chest heaves in another sob, and Zevran kisses the back of his neck, nearly the only skin he can reach. His life has been spent persuading people to do what he wants, even when that puts them in danger, and yet now he can't find the words to convince Alistair of the truth: that none of this is his fault.

"You should go," Alistair whispers. "You shouldn't...I don't deserve...go _away_."

Zevran shakes his head without speaking, knowing Alistair will feel the movement.

"I can't," Alistair whispers.

When he doesn't go on, Zevran swallows and uses every ounce of control he has to keep his voice level. "Can't what, cachorro?"

" _Can't_ ," Alistair says again, more forcefully. "I can't...what I did...I can't..."

For a moment, Zevran thinks he'll stop there, but then more words tumble out, nearly falling over each other, "I can't keep this in my head, I don't want it, I don't want to be like Howe, but I am, I'm like him, and I'm like...that other...a wolf, you called him a wolf, and I'm no different, and if I'm not any different, then I should be dead just like them-" Zevran's whole body goes cold, but the words keeping flowing. "- because that's what's _right_ , and I know that, and I...I know what I need to do, I was going to do it-"

"Para," Zevran begs, desperate to stop the words, as if that will somehow change the thoughts behind them. Bad enough that Alistair will likely die facing the archdemon; a hundred times worse for him to go to his death thinking he deserves it.

If Alistair even hears him, he ignores the plea, words coming faster. "-and Morrigan, she has a way, Mahariel said it was a good idea, she wants to save me, but if she _knew_ -"

For a moment, Zevran doesn't understand, then the world freezes, narrows down to this courtyard, to the air he drags in so he can ask, "Morrigan has a way to _what_?"

"To kill the archdemon without it killing me. Or Mahariel. But I don't deserve-"

 _"Para."_ He doesn't know how much more he can take.

There's a brief silence, then Alistair asks in an almost-normal voice, "Para?"

Brasca. He didn't even realize he was speaking in Antivan. It should scare him more than anything else tonight, but it's just an irritant, only annoying because it means he has to repeat himself. "Stop," he says. "Please stop."

"I _can't_." Alistair's shivering is strong enough to make Zevran tremble, too. "I've tried, and I can't, and...and it's the only thing I can think of. Because if they should be dead, then I should be, too."

Zevran's hands close into fists, one in Alistair's tunic and one in his hair. "You are not Howe," he says fiercely. "You are not him, and you are not like him, and you will _never_ be like him."

"I hurt you," Alistair whispers.

"You gave me a gift." A gift with a higher cost than either of them expected, but it's too late now to do anything except pay it. "What do you think Howe would have done, had he been there in your place?"

Alistair shakes his head as best he can with Zevran's hand in his hair.

"He would have tried to take me apart, piece by piece," Zevran says.

"That's what I did." The words are barely audible.

The truth is so much harder than lies. Zevran tells it anyway. "You did," he says, and Alistair stiffens. "But only because I let you. Do you think I would have done the same for a man like Howe?"

Tension hums between them, a lute string ready to snap, and Zevran presses another kiss to Alistair's fingers. At least the skin isn't bleeding anymore. "Howe was a wolf, cachorro," he murmurs. "And you are nothing like him."

"You would say that even if you didn't believe it," Alistair says.

"This is not something I would lie about." Not here, not now. "I would kill Howe a thousand times if it would make you believe me, but I cannot. And anything I say, you could distrust as easily. So we are at an impasse, are we not?"

He's not sure himself if he's joking or giving up. His emotions are too tangled to pick them apart: anger at himself and at Howe, fear for Alistair, gut-wrenching terror that anyone should mean so much to him, and a crushing helplessness he hasn't felt in years. Even after Rinna's death, he had a plan. Now, he has nothing.

Beneath him, Alistair stirs, shoulders shrugging and arms pushing out until Zevran lets go. The night air is cold on his skin, and he feels more alone than ever as he crosses his arms over his chest and tries to pretend the gesture is only because of the autumn chill.

Slowly, stiff as an old man, Alistair uncurls, bracing his hands on his knees for a moment before he sits back on his heels. His eyes are puffy, his cheeks blotchy, and it takes all Zevran's control to bite back, _"Please don't leave me."_ He has no right to ask Alistair for anything.

Alistair looks up, meeting his eyes at last, the air between them heavy with all the lies and slanted truths Zevran has ever told. Alistair is ready to pull away, and Zevran knows that if it happens, this time it will be for good. If he wants this thing between them to end, all he has to do is tell one more lie, make one more joke about something he's never found amusing.

"You should go," Alistair whispers.

Zevran's throat closes, and the longer the silence between them lasts, the more the cold sinks down through his skin and into his bones. Every breath trembles in his chest, and he's shivering so hard his teeth would be chattering if he didn't have his jaw clenched tight. All his faltering attempts at truth are too little, too late. Alistair will turn down Morrigan's help and face the archdemon glad to die, because Zevran said yes when he should have said no.

And here he is again, caught between those two simple words, about to make the same mistake he made last time, taking with no thought to the cost.

"If that is what you want," he says, ignoring the way the words burn in his throat.

Alistair's face crumples, and Zevran feels like someone has gutted him: like everything vital has been cut out, leaving only bones and flesh to move in a parody of life. Entreaties and apologies try to push their way out, but he closes his throat against them and gathers himself to stand.

"I don't want to be like Howe," Alistair whispers.

Zevran freezes in place, still on one knee and unsure whether he should speak or be silent, whether he should stay where he is or leave Alistair in peace.

Alistair's hands clench into fists. "Please don't let me be Howe."

For a moment, Zevran thinks the words are a prayer to the Maker, as much a plea as that earlier, "I am not alone." But Alistair isn't looking up at the sky. He's staring into Zevran's eyes like he's begging for his life, and hope bursts inside Zevran's chest, as painful as stretching out his hands to a fire after too long in the cold.

"There is nothing of Howe in you." His voice doesn't break, not after all his years of training, but he almost wishes it had, if that would convince Alistair of his sincerity. "You would grow wings and fly long before you became anything like him."

"If...if I did..." Alistair sucks in a short, harsh breath. "If I did, would you stop me?"

Slowly, afraid Alistair will flinch back, Zevran reaches out to touch his face. "Yes, cachorro. If you did, I would stop you."

Alistair's eyes close. "Please don't let me hurt you. I don't want to hurt you."

"That has never been a thing I feared." Not the way Alistair means it, at any rate. "And do you know why?"

"Why?" The answer is so quiet Zevran doesn't hear the word so much as feel the shape of it under his hand.

"Because from the first, all I ever had to say was stop. Do you know how strange that was to me?" Another truth so terrifying he can barely say it aloud, so he rushes past it. "When I said 'paz,' you stopped."

"What if I don't, next time?" New tears slip out from beneath Alistair's closed eyelids. "I almost didn't, that time."

Zevran rubs the tears away with his thumb and brings up his other hand to cradle Alistair's face. "When you heard, you stopped."

"But what if I don't? What if I turn into someone who doesn't?"

"No one changes in a single night," Zevran says. "There are a hundred steps along that road, and you hate the thought of even looking down it."

Alistair opens his mouth, only to close it again after a moment, his expression guarded despite the tears drying on his face.

"Tell me?" Zevran wants to know, but he barely has the right to ask, and no right at all to command.

"Would you know the difference?" The words come out all in a rush, and Alistair wraps a hand tightly around one of Zevran's, as if he means to pull it away from his face.

Zevran tenses again, stomach taking another dive for the ground, only to feel tears gathering behind his eyes when Alistair presses their joined hands harder against his cheek.

"I know the difference," Zevran whispers, leaning close enough to rest his forehead against Alistair's. He wants more than just Alistair's hand on his, wants skin contact so much it's almost a need, but he's afraid to push, afraid to ask for anything in case it proves to be too much. "I will tell you if you go too far."

The fingers of Alistair's free hand brush lightly over the tattoo on his cheek, and Zevran turns into it. He deliberately ignores the part of him that's appalled to realize he's lost track of himself so completely that he closed his eyes without knowing it.

"You like it when I hurt you." It's half a question, and Zevran knows exactly what he's trying to ask.

"I like some pain, yes." He picks his words carefully, listening for any change in Alistair's breathing, trying to read Alistair's face by touch in the dim light. "The Crows taught me everything they know of pain, but I think that makes me a better judge than most."

Alistair shivers, his fingers tracing the tattoo again, as if it holds some secret meaning for him that Zevran doesn't understand. "Or maybe the Crows made it so you don't know the difference at all."

"I know the difference." On this, at least, he's sure, whatever doubts Alistair might have.

Doubts that hang between them now, though Alistair says nothing aloud. Zevran's skin prickles at the renewed tension.

Maybe it's desperation, or maybe truth-telling is like anything else, easier with practice. Whatever the reason, Zevran finds himself saying, "The night Taliesin died, I tried to send you away."

Alistair nods, but the tension doesn't dissipate, so Zevran steels himself and says, "Why do you think I left you and went hunting wolves?"

"Because you thought I couldn't do it," Alistair says. By the unexpected bitterness in his voice, he still doesn't understand.

"Yes," Zevran agrees, and when Alistair tries to pull away, Zevran holds on, forcing Alistair's head up until their eyes meet. "Yes, I wanted someone else because I thought it was too much to ask of you. Perhaps I was wrong, or perhaps I was right," a question that will haunt him for the rest of his life, "but if I were truly blind to the difference between you and Howe, why would I have needed anyone else?"

This time, Alistair's shiver is more like a shudder, and tears slip down his cheeks, cold against Zevran's fingers. "I don't know," he whispers.

Zevran pulls him forward gently, a little afraid it might provoke a complete withdrawal, but Alistair moves with the pressure so quickly they almost overbalance, as if he's been holding himself back and can't any longer. His arms go around Zevran, so tight his muscles tremble with the effort, and he buries his face in the curve of Zevran's neck.

"If I thought you were like Howe," Zevran murmurs into Alistair's hair, his own eyes squeezed shut against tears, "I would have asked you for what I needed, because a wolf was what I thought I wanted." He breathes in, letting the smell of Alistair's skin overwhelm everything else. "The world is full of wolves and Crows, cachorro, but you have never been one of them."

The weight of Alistair's body is awkward from this angle, but Zevran can't bring himself to let go, not even for the few moments it would take to sit more comfortably. Instead, he kneels in the dirt with Alistair clinging to him, his own fingers aching where they're clenched in Alistair's shirt. He feels as if, when he lets go, Alistair will disappear.

Because he will, in only a few weeks. Whatever resolution they've come to here, whatever aid Morrigan offered, this ends when they return to Denerim. If Alistair lives, he'll stand beside Anora in front of their Maker and swear an oath he'll never break.

He'll be alive to swear the oath, though, and that's no small thing. Whatever needs to be done to make that happen, Zevran is prepared to do it.

The middle of Eamon's garden is perhaps not the place for that conversation, however, and Zevran's body is protesting both the position and the cold with increasing vehemence. Alistair is still holding tight, but he's also shifting his weight nearly constantly, as if he's trying to ease the pressure on his own knees.

When Alistair's breathing has slowed to normal, Zevran kisses the top of his head and says, "You'll freeze out here, cachorro. Come inside?"

By the way Alistair's arms tighten convulsively, Zevran might as well have suggested they never see each other again.

"Then at least sit with me here," Zevran says, freeing an arm long enough to pat the bench beside them. "Sitting on the ground will do you no favors."

Alistair hesitates a moment before releasing him with obvious reluctance, and he doesn't stand when Zevran does. Instead, he waits until Zevran sits on the bench and then crawls across the ground to sit cross-legged at his feet, head resting against the side of Zevran's knee and one arm wrapped around Zevran's legs.

It's a terrible position to be in should anyone attack, neither of them able to move quickly. Zevran ignores that and leans forward, propping one forearm across his knees and dropping the other hand to Alistair's head. His hair is damp with sweat, his face still damp with tears that soak into Zevran's trousers, but his breathing stays slow and easy.

Maybe Zevran is about to ruin that, but he needs to know. "Tell me what Morrigan plans?" How can he help without the details?

Alistair's shoulders twitch, but he presses closer to Zevran rather than pulling away. "There's a ritual. It catches the archdemon's soul, wipes away the taint."

When he doesn't go on, Zevran asks, "And the price?" A question he won't forget to ask again.

"I..." Alistair's head turns down, as if he's trying to hide his face, though Zevran can't see it anyway from this position. "Morrigan needed...she needed someone to...she needed a Grey Warden. And of course Mahariel couldn't...ummm... _couldn't_..."

After a moment, Zevran assembles all those broken pieces into a picture that makes sense. How Mahariel talked Alistair into it is a mystery, but that isn't the part Zevran cares most about. "And what else?"

"Nothing else," Alistair says. "Not for us. We just don't...do what Grey Wardens do." He rubs his cheek against the side of Zevran's knee and whispers, "I still could, though. Take the archdemon myself, kill it the right way-"

"And kill yourself in the process," Zevran says, more harshly than he meant.

"It's what I'm supposed to do," Alistair says. "Stopping Blights is the only reason the Grey Wardens exist, and if I'm not doing that, then what's the point of becoming one at all?"

"Will Morrigan's ritual stop this Blight?"

Alistair hesitates, then nods.

"Then it seems to me that your duty as a Grey Warden is properly dispatched." He strokes Alistair's hair. "The Blight will be ended, and you can see Ferelden rebuilt. You've come this far already and given Morrigan what she needs. Why destroy all that work now?"

Instead of answering, Alistair asks, "Does it bother you? That Morrigan and I..."

He trails off, and Zevran has to swallow a laugh. "That you fucked Morrigan? No, cachorro, it does not bother me." He wants to admit exactly how far he would go if it would save Alistair's life, but that's more truth than he can say tonight. A simpler truth for now, then. "In Antiva, we take a different view of what it means to be faithful to a lover."

"Backwards notions of fidelity," Alistair mumbles, and he must have heard that from someone else, because it sounds nothing like him.

Zevran makes an inquiring noise, curious who he's quoting. Riordan, perhaps? Orlais is more like Antiva than Ferelden, at least in this regard. Why Alistair would be discussing such things with anyone is a mystery, though.

Alistair is quiet for a long time, his arm tight around Zevran's legs, and when he does finally speak, it's to ask a question of his own. "What about...would it bother you to be...to be on the other side? To be with someone who was married?"

Sparks jump under Zevran's skin, a rush of hope he crushes immediately. "It would depend on many things," he says, picking each word carefully. "Whether I am a secret, hidden from my lover's wife or husband. Whether I am something shameful, to be kept separate and apart." Right now, he would say yes to anything Alistair asked of him, but he knows it would make both of them miserable in the long run. "Whether I am allowed to be a person, or treated like a thing to be displayed, so others might be jealous."

"I wouldn't...I would never-"

"I know." Zevran cups the side of his head, holding it tightly against his knee for a moment. "I know you would never, but there are those who would enjoy parading their pet Crow before the world."

"If...would you stay with someone who didn't do that? Even if they were married?"

Impossible to pretend any longer that Alistair isn't talking about himself, and the hope leaps up again. Zevran crushes it as fast as he did before. "And Anora?"

Alistair makes a startled choking noise, and Zevran suppresses a real smile. Did he truly think he was being subtle?

To give him a moment to recover, Zevran adds, "Your queen would not be so kindly disposed toward me, I fear."

"She said she didn't care," Alistair blurts out.

Zevran's thoughts skid to a stop, a galloping horse suddenly presented with a wall it can't jump. "What?"

"She said she didn't care," Alistair says again, more slowly. "That she cared about..." He hums thoughtfully, like he's trying to remember what Anora said, and Zevran wants to shake him until he finishes the sentence. "She said all she cared about was _parity_ , not 'some backwards notion of fidelity.'"

A distant, objective part of Zevran makes a note to personally kill anyone who tries to hurt Anora. The rest of him is divided between a hope so strong it feels like terror and an equally strong need to smother that hope before he's disappointed yet again.

His voice betrays none of that when he says, "So she will have lovers of her own."

Alistair nods, but Zevran can't let it go at that. "And it will not concern you, when your wife takes someone else to her bed?"

"No," Alistair says without hesitation. Then, more uncertain: "I know it should, but...she's right, isn't she? If I can have you, shouldn't she have someone she wants?"

The air is too thick to breathe, clogging his throat until he's dizzy and the world begins to spin. It's everything he wanted, and he can't stop looking for the hook inside the bait, his thoughts galloping once again. No one gives away anything for free, and no one gives a gift like this to a Crow. There has to be some deeper motive-

It all falls apart there, because this is Alistair. Alistair, who's as transparent as a pane of the finest glass, every thought and emotion forever on display. Alistair, who couldn't lie even to save himself from public shame, and who likely couldn't lie to save his own life.

Alistair, who's turned now and come up on his knees, one hand on the bench and one hand clenched into a tight fist, and Zevran hates that he's lost track of what's happening _again_ , but he hates the fear on Alistair's face more.

"Zev?"

The pet name sends a shiver through him, a name Alistair has only whispered a handful of times, always before when he was desperate with need or on the edge of release. It turns the air thick again, so that Zevran has to fight for breath against the weight on his chest.

While he's struggling, Alistair asks softly, uncertain again, " _Will_ you stay? After the archdemon." He swallows so hard it makes Zevran's throat hurt. "I'd like it if you stayed. For a little while?"

If Alistair asked, he would stay forever, but that's not something he can say aloud. He's already laid himself bare too many times tonight. "If we are somehow lucky enough to survive, I would be foolish to turn down such an offer, would I not?"

He means it as a small joke, something to lighten the mood and perhaps make Alistair smile, but he knows immediately it was the wrong thing to say.

"If you don't want to," Alistair begins, trying to look stoic and mostly just looking miserable.

"I want to," Zevran interrupts. He takes Alistair's face in both hands and kisses him lightly. Alistair's lips are cold, but Zevran's are no better, and Alistair tips his chin up obligingly, his hand unclenching from its fist to curl loosely around Zevran's knee, and Zevran thinks--hopes--he's been forgiven.

"I wish to stay," Zevran says again, enunciating each word. "And if we survive, then I shall."

" _If_ we survive," Alistair mutters. Despite his tone, he twists his hand into Zevran's hair and holds on, kissing him again and again, until their mouths are warm and Zevran's fingers are tingling.

When they're both breathless, Alistair sits back again, scrubbing both hands over his face. His eyes are shut, but the lines of tension around them are gone.

"Come inside," Zevran says again, and this time, Alistair climbs slowly to his feet.

He keeps hold of Zevran's hand as they make their way through the keep, all the way back to his room. Inside, Zevran helps him out of his clothes and into a bath, run hot enough to turn Alistair's skin pink. Zevran sits on the edge of the tub and dangles his legs in, his feet bumping against Alistair's leg as he takes each of Alistair's hands in turn and rubs elfroot salve into the scratches that still mar the skin.

When he's smoothed away every one, he strips himself down and climbs into the tub, letting the hot water and Alistair's hands chase away the last of the cold.


End file.
